Blog

5 Ways to Use Email More Productively

Ok, you can’t live without email but you’ve fallen into some bad habits. Break those bad habits and learn to use emails more effectively. Want to improve your email efficiency? Here are 5 email mistakes that could be costing you time and money — and what you should do about them.

Remember beating your friend or your older brother home from school? How did you do it? You may have ran faster but you probably also ran smarter. You found shortcuts. Mistake #1 – You are not using computer shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts can save you a whole lot of time and prevent carpal tunnel, even if you only utilize a few of them. Each of the three major email providers, Outlook, Gmail and Hotmail/Yahoo Mail support keyboard shortcuts. And if you can’t remember the shortcuts, you can generally type “?” to see a complete list.

Did you ever have to listen to a speaker or lecturer that was just too verbose? You may have understood what he was trying to say minutes ago but he or she is still droning on? Mistake #2 –Are your emails just too dang long? If you want to get a reply don’t annoy your contacts, keep your messages brief and cut to the chase. Your odds of getting read improve drastically if you keep your messages short and sweet. Ignore fixing this habit and your long emails get put aside for a later time and often times go unread or get deleted.

Have you ever joined too many clubs, got involved in too many activities social, professional or school and ended up never having enough time for anything? Mistake #3 – Are you on far too many lists and newsletters? Sifting through email newsletters, spam, promotional offerings and deciding to delete, file, save or forward can really eat up your time. Do you really need all of this traffic that comes into your inbox? Unsubscribe from these list that you are just not getting to anyway or establish an automatic filter that helps you cope with all of them.

Growing up with big brothers and their big friends, arm wrestling and headlocks were not uncommon, so I learned early to say uncle or throw in the towel. But in the world of emails and email inboxes, never give up. Mistake #4 – Are you keeping all of those unread emails, thousands upon thousands of inbox emails that are sapping your attention and possibly slowing down your computer performance if not your own performance and you have just given up on ever handling them? Put some sanity into your email inbox with Sanebox or a free Mailbox application for iOS and Android to conquer your email inbox!

“Marilu” Henner best known for her role as Elaine O’Connor Nardo on the sitcom Taxi from 1978 to 1983 has a superior autobiographical memory (displaying an extraordinary ability to recall specific events from one’s past). Don’t you wish we all had this kind of memory? How often have you misplaced your car keys and have had to spend time searching in frustration, kicking yourself for having a memory freeze? Mistake #5 – Are you spending time searching for emails that you have filed into folders or are using Gmail’s labels in an attempt to organize your email in folders having to remember where and how you filed them? Instead of trying to remember where you put everything, use the search feature that’s available with most web email services and applications.

If you have any questions about how to put any of the above tips into action email us or call us and we will help you out.